Evolution - and how we know it's right

[The Source]

I am entering into this conversation late in the game.

 

I will start with: I am a Catholic (Christian). In order to answer the main question presented, there has to be a balance between science and religion. My aunt is a solidified Born Again Christian, and we have these legnthly discussions about Science vrs. History vrs. Theology vrs. Religion. Unfortunately, she is an extrodinary fundamentalist.

 

I believe that Genusis is the story of evolution, which science can only support through testing hypothesis. God created the universe. After mankind reached a level of consciousness, they discovered the hidiousness of sin and pain. Instead of looking at 'God created the Earth in six days, and then he rested on the seventh.', I believe God created the Earth in a much longer period of time.

 

My Definition of Adam and Eve:

Adam and Eve symbolize the first two humanbeings who acheived full conscienceness. They represent the moment when mankind went from a nieve state into a more knowledgeable being. (Apple symbolizes the knowledge they acheived.) However, humanity had to evolve into this more knowledgable state. God, through his patience and wisdom, allowed humanity to progress from a primitive anemo-acids (sp?) into Adam and Eve. Through our study of science, we are learning the fundamentals of how mankind went from a one celled organism into a complex biological being.

 

My 'Let there Be Light' Definition:

When God said, "Let There Be Light", this symbolizes the beginning of creationism and evolution. The light represents what science calls the 'Big Bang'. Before the universe existed, there was absolutly nothing. God in his infinite wisdom and patience, pushed together these unknown elements to give birth to the galaxy. Sience will only give us a glimpse of his process. I do believe that there are certain things that even God will prevent mankind from finding out. However, mankind will eventually findout significant processes, but we will never truely understand the unknown (Supernatural) process.

 

Bringing It All Together:

God -> Created evolution through his wisdom and patience. The supernatural process.

 

Mankind -> Creates a scientific/biological understanding of what he has done.

 

Science -> Is a testing of theories and hypothesis, which our curious species needs inorder to find cures for health issues. Without science involved, we will not be able to find ansers to the questions 'What If" or "How".

 

Evolution -> Is the process that God pushed forward, which caused biological changes to occur. These biological changes allowed our species to adapt to our environment. Sience will only help us understand what biological changes he allowed to occur. At the end, this will only benifit mankind.

 

Science vrs. Religion Conundrum:

Science put up a restraining order on religion, and religion put up a restraining order on science. This will prevent mankind from excepting our Lord the Father and from growing as a human species. Why? This is a topic for another thread and time.

[Point Man]

I have to wonder why the limit was placed on not discussing origin of the universe. That is where the real question is. Even though some of the older evidence for evolution is questionable at best and dishonest at worst, to dispute that species adapt to changing conditions is to deny reality. However, no theory of evolution can answer the question of where matter came from. To say that atoms somehow organized themselves into complex molecules in violation of the Law of Entropy takes at least as much faith as saying God created the universe.

[Dagobahn Eagle]

However, no theory of evolution can answer the question of where matter came from.

Nor is that, with all due respect, the "job" of the theory of evolution. Its task is to explain how the existing organism developed into what they are today.

 

To say that atoms somehow organized themselves into complex molecules in violation of the Law of Entropy takes at least as much faith as saying God created the universe.

Perhaps so (except the enthropy part - the law of enthropy does not disprove evolution, contrary to popular belief). But again, that's... What, abio-genesis (?), not evolution.

 

Oh, and welcome aboard!

[Point Man]

Nor is that, with all due respect, the "job" of the theory of evolution. Its task is to explain how the existing organism developed into what they are today.

Maybe so. Let's skip forward and postulate matter always existed (a statement of faith, not of science). How then do we get from atoms to complex molecules to cells to organisms? In my entire time as a microbiology major at college, I never found any empirical evidence to support that path. It just plain violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

 

the law of enthropy does not disprove evolution, contrary to popular belief).

It sure makes a compelling argument, though. Are you willing to say that the Law of Entropy applies now, but it did not apply billions of years ago?

 

Oh, and welcome aboard!

Thanks! I take it as my duty to help people think about what they choose to believe. I put my faith in Creation. Others may put their faith in evoluton, but I hope to make them realize their belief system takes just as much faith as mine.

[Dagobahn Eagle]

http://www.talkorigins.org/FAQ:

Question: Doesn't evolution violate the second law of thermodynamics? After all, order cannot come from disorder.

Answer: Evolution does not violate the second law of thermodynamics. Order emerges from disorder all the time. Snowflakes form, trees grow, and embryos develop, etc. [...]

 

The thermodynamics argument is a common one, but it's nothing more than a myth.

[Point Man]

http://www.talkorigins.org/FAQ:

 

 

The thermodynamics argument is a common one, but it's nothing more than a myth.

Formation of snowflakes does not violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics because they form in an open system and the snowflakes are disordered. They do not conglomerate into snowmen; they remain individual snowflakes. Check Question #4

 

Tree growth and embryonic development do not violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics because the organism expends energy.

 

How did random atoms acquire the energy to form molecules, complex molecules, complex organic molecules, cells, tissues, and then organisms? And please don't say it was lightning striking a primordial soup in a reducing atmosphere. I did not buy it as a college freshman, and I do not buy it now.

[ShadowTemplar]

I have to wonder why the limit was placed on not discussing origin of the universe.

 

Because that has jack squat to do with the subject of the thread, which is biological evolution. You want to discuss cosmology? Fine with me. Start another thread. You want to discuss chemical abiogenesis? Fine with me. In another thread.

 

Limiting the discussion solely to biological evolution is simply a matter of limiting the subject of a single thread to something almost manageable, so that questions in one area don't get lost in replies to questions about another area.

 

And, contrary to what you imply, the distinction actually made is not an arbitrary one. We know that life exists. How it came about is immaterial to the ToE. We know that the Earth existed well before life arose. How the Earth came to be is immaterial to the question of how life arose (OK, not quite - it can shed some interesting light on the question).

 

So the distinction is quite well grounded in the different questions posed by those different phases. Not to mention the fact that ToE is primarily biological and biochemical, while chemical abiogenesis is primarily chemical, and cosmology is an astrophysical dicipline. It would be mightily unreasonable to expect the same commenters to cover such a wide range of fields.

 

Even though some of the older evidence for evolution is questionable at best and dishonest at worst,

 

Dishonest? Which parts? Questionable-but-not-dishonest? Which parts?

 

However, no theory of evolution can answer the question of where matter came from.

 

That being because ToE does not attempt to explain that. ToE explains what happened on this planet after the first life was formed. The formation of said life - much less the formation of the planet - is irrelevant.

 

To say that atoms somehow organized themselves into complex molecules in violation of the Law of Entropy

 

Pray tell, what does 2LoT actually say?

 

[Answer]

 

There is one subtle error in the essay.

 

I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to find it.

 

Next, pray tell, do chemists and biochemists who routinely synthezise complex molecules violate 2LoT in their daily work?

 

Oh, and while we're on the subject of thermodynamics, what do the other three laws of thermodynamics say?

 

For a more thorough understanding of how 2LoT (and Newtonian dynamics) work, you could visit the Museum of Unworkable Devices.

 

Let's skip forward and postulate matter always existed (a statement of faith, not of science).

 

First of all, it's not necessary to postulate that matter has 'always' existed. Secondly, the formation of matter is hardly an issue of faith. Astrophysics have the timeline pretty much pat down (although I am personaly in no position to evaluate the soundness of their arguments), and as we speak, investigation into the nature of matter itself is underway at the Centre for European Nuclear Research near Geneva, Switzerland.

 

How then do we get from atoms to complex molecules

 

Sorry, you'll need to find both a chemist, and another thread if you want an answer to that question. This link provides part of the answer, but, AFAIK, the whole story has yet to be determined.

 

to cells

 

Again, the picture is, AFAIK, incomplete, but RNA has been formed using common chemicals. Lipids - the stuff that makes up our cell membranes - spontaneously forms into closed membranes - that's the trick that makes soap work. And you can probably find more information if you ask a biochemist.

 

to organisms?

 

Once you have a living cell, you have an organism. If you mean multicellular organism, part of the story can be found here.

 

In my entire time as a microbiology major at college, I never found any empirical evidence to support that path.

 

Argument from personal incredulity.

 

It just plain violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

 

I reiterate my questions:

 

Pray tell, what does 2LoT actually say?

 

Next, pray tell, do chemists and biochemists who routinely synthezise complex molecules violate 2LoT in their daily work?

 

Oh, and while we're on the subject of thermodynamics, what do the other three laws of thermodynamics say?

 

It sure makes a compelling argument, though. Are you willing to say that the Law of Entropy applies now, but it did not apply billions of years ago?

 

I reiterate my questions from above:

 

Pray tell, what does 2LoT actually say?

 

Next, pray tell, do chemists and biochemists who routinely synthezise complex molecules violate 2LoT in their daily work?

 

Oh, and while we're on the subject of thermodynamics, what do the other three laws of thermodynamics say?

 

Formation of snowflakes does not violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics because they form in an open system

 

Well, so does life... - or, rather, it forms in a closed, but not isolated system, which is rather more to the point.

 

and the snowflakes are disordered.

 

Pray tell, what relevance does 'disorder' have w.r.t. thermodynamics?

 

They do not conglomerate into snowmen; they remain individual snowflakes.

 

But they're still just fruitflies. Sorry, cheap shot, but I couldn't resist...

 

The point here is not that the snowflakes don't form into snowmen. The point is that the snowflakes have lower enthropy than the water vapour from which they are formed. This is compensated for by the fact that during their formation, they have released energy to their surroundings, thus increasing the enthropy of the rest of the world. Which brings us to your reference:

 

A forming snowflake is an open system. There is mass transfer across the boundary.

 

More to the point, there's an energy transfer. You can easily design an experimental setup in which the freezing water is a closed system - but it won't freeze unless there's an energy transfer.

 

If snowflake formation causes a reduction in the entropy of the snowflake, then, by the second law, the entropy change of the surroundings must increase.

 

That's precisely the point. Now, try to apply this to biological systems.

 

What about the order of the snowflake? A snowflake indeed appears to have a high degree of order, but remember, we are talking about ordered energy. Ordered energy is energy that is available to do work.

 

Feh. Now he's confusing enthropy and free energy. A snowflake as a lower enthropy than gaseous water. Inasmuch as enthropy translates to disorder (an analogy, by the way, that is far from perfect), the snowflake could be said to have a higher degree of order. Why the author feels compelled to bring up the free energy of the snowflake is something I fail to understand.

 

Once a snowflake forms, it doesn't do any work,

 

Well, technically no bodies do any work. Forces do work. But, contrary to the statement by your source, falling snowflakes do indeed apply forces to their environment, and those forces do indeed do work. Further, if you collect an abundance of snowflakes in a basket, and pour them over a treadmill, you will see that snowflakes can indeed contain free energy...

 

And, frankly, I fail to see any sense in the rest of the article.

 

Tree growth and embryonic development do not violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics because the organism expends energy.

 

You're confusing energy and free energy.

 

How did random atoms acquire the [free] energy to form molecules, complex molecules, complex organic molecules, cells, tissues, and then organisms?

 

Same place they do today: Old man Sol. Not to mention the fact that in an anoxic environment, it will be energetically favorable for Hydrogen and Nitrogen - two of the most common compounds in the universe - to form Methane - a compound that contains more free energy than CO2 and water.

 

And please don't say it was lightning striking a primordial soup in a reducing atmosphere. I did not buy it as a college freshman, and I do not buy it now.

 

Howsabout volcanic outgassing then?

[toms]

http://www.framestore-cfc.com/commercials/guinness_noitulove/amv_gune339_050_qt.mov

seems to explain it quite well. But you might have to play it backwards.

[Dagobahn Eagle]

God, am I good!

 

I managed, throught extra-ordinary patience and superb coping skills, to suffer my way through this speech rant by Dr. Kent Hovind (note that he is not a doctor in the field of biology).

2 1/2 hours of Creationist propaganda! Or, in other words, 2 1/2 hours of idiocy. Although, of course, he goes from evolution to conspiracy theories about communism, the NWO, and NRA-style gun-teasing pretty soon:rolleyes:. "If you think Timothy McVeigh was behind blowing up the Oklahoma City Building, you're really duped".

 

Fair enough that he realizes that the "anti-terrorist" measures like the PATRIOT ACT are dangerous, but come on...

 

Either way, it's official: I've got patience with morons:D! But holy ****, watching through it wasn't easy. They should introduce it as a torture tool at Guantanamo.

 

In reply to post above (which was not moronic):

Formation of snowflakes does not violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics because they form in an open system and the snowflakes are disordered.

Snow flakes are certainly orderly.

 

Vapour that snow flakes come from:

 

Snow flake:

It looks very orderly to me. Geometric and symmetric both.

 

They do not conglomerate into snowmen; they remain individual snowflakes.

Of course not. But the disorder of the vapour leads to the order of the snow-flake.

[toms]

Good grief.. i think i'd rather sit through 2 1/2 hours of NWO wrestling...

..what is he a doctor of?

[Samuel Dravis]

He has a bachelor's in religious education from an unaccredited university, and his master's and doctorate are from a diploma mill. Not really hard to understand why his dissertation is held under lock and key. Probably it's gibberish.

[Dagobahn Eagle]

FAQ on Kent Hovind.

[Nedak]

What I was saying was that the vast majority of world populace does not believe in evolution.

 

I disagree. I think that a vast majority of the world doesn’t even know what Evolution is, and/or are not willing to open their minds to learn, and to try and comprehend Evolution. Most who don't believe in Evolution are narrow minded, and unwilling to learn outside of their Christian, Catholic, and other beliefs.

[Totenkopf]

han sala:

I disagree. I think that a vast majority of the world doesn’t even know what Evolution is, and/or are not willing to open their minds to learn, and to try and comprehend Evolution. Most who don't believe in Evolution are narrow minded, and unwilling to learn outside of their Christian, Catholic, and other beliefs.

-------------------------------------------------------

 

I take it that you're indicting individuals here, not necessarily belief systems? BWIM that surely you're not implying that all Catholics, for instance, reject ToE out of hand? Last I heard, at least one of the 20thC popes stated that ToE and belief in God were not in fact mutually exclusive.

 

But the fact also remains that until the fabled missing link between man and ape is found, ToE is going to be a hard sell as anything other than a theory to most people. The inconvenient fact is that many people try to replace the concept of God with evolution as the explanation of where we came from all along. Niether idea is mutually exclusive. I daresay that if hardcore evoultionists didn't try to seperate God from evolution, they might be more widely accepted by most people.

[SkinWalker]

But the fact also remains that until the fabled missing link between man and ape is found, ToE is going to be a hard sell as anything other than a theory to most people.

 

That "fact" only remains in the minds of the undereducated. The link between man and ape is genetic and the genetic distances between humans and other apes (man *is* an ape) is very much known. If you were referring to the fallacious notion that the ancestor of Homo sapiens is an "ape," and the "missing link" you're referring to is between them, I feel compelled to point out that man and apes evolved from a common species. The "missing links" are many and also well known. How many australopithecines are necessary before the morphological trends from earlier species are clear enough for people to accept?

 

Moreover, "anything other than a theory" is yet another fallacy that I've addressed at least once in this thread. Theories can contain laws, facts and tested hypotheses. Each of which are present in the "theory of evolution." Evolution is a fact. It really happened.

 

The inconvenient fact is that many people try to replace the concept of God with evolution as the explanation of where we came from all along. Niether idea is mutually exclusive. I daresay that if hardcore evoultionists didn't try to seperate God from evolution, they might be more widely accepted by most people.

 

God simply isn't a factor. If there is a god, it would be a truly incompetent one that couldn't have set into motion the creation of the universe using the laws of physics that are measurable and observable. Evolution doesn't take into consideration a god simply because a god is a supernatural/magical concept and thus not testable. It is therefore, discarded as a hypothesis as god doesn't matter. There's no replacement, it simply has no place in a scientific perspective, so why bother with it? Science cannot be pinned down to a single religious cult, it operates independently. Otherwise there would be as many different scientific methods as there were worldviews, religions and cults -each with a different god to interject into their explanations of how the world works.

[Totenkopf]

Perhaps I should have said as anything other than an unsubstantiated theory. You don't have to try to sell me, so to speak, on the concept of evoultion. I accept that it is the best theory we have for how life as developed on this planet. Where people like you (no, I'm not actually channeling Ross Perot here) have a problem is that you state things as fact that you don't really know are fact. We don't really know if there's a god or not, but absence of proof is not proof of absence. Maybe God is real and maybe he's just a collective myth. What you're saying isn't only that we can't factor a supernatural, untestable variable into the equation, but that that variable doesn't even exist. Basically, what you CAN say is that you think life DEVELOPED along these lines (ie evolution), but that you don't know what is the ultimate source of the material from whence it arose. That is more logical than simply saying something doesn't exist because you can't measure it.

[SkinWalker]

Where people like you (no, I'm not actually channeling Ross Perot here) have a problem is that you state things as fact that you don't really know are fact.

 

Please quote me on which "facts" I've misrepresented as so. I'll be happy to revise my position on them should I be wrong.

[Totenkopf]

Quite simply, you claim to KNOW that God doesn't exist, but then admit in another thread that you can't actually test that hypothesis. So, if you can't really test whether god exists or not, you can't prove he doesn't. That's the only place I'm faulting you. Besides, if you KNOW God doesn't really exist, you'd be an atheist and not an "agnostic-atheist".

[SkinWalker]

Perhaps you could quote the passage and include the post # where I stated I know god doesn't exist so I can correct this blatant oversight.

[Totenkopf]

In all fairness, I didn't quote you. However, also in the interest of fair play I'll admit that I was reduced to inferring your position from having read through many of your posts. After having reread many of your posts and reading others I hadn't yet seen, I don't think it's unfair to conclude from your often dismissive comments about religion as little other than superstitition and it's believers as delusional, that you think the nonexistence of God (or any god for that matter) is in actuality a fact. I do agree in part with some of your comments regarding the nature of threads like this one that if one is going to argue vs evolution, they shouldn't just resort to the knee jerk position that God created the universe and therefore evolution is merely bs.

 

While that shot in one of the threads about you being a monkeyboy could be taken as a kind of cheap shot, I think you're well aware that he was coyly attacking your belief in evoultion. Still, colorful potshots like that, so long as someone doesn't start reducing themselves to actually cursing you or deriding your intellect repeatedly, kind of make the threads a little more interesting to read and a little less dry to have to digest.

 

BTW, I've also read your caveats about your position on god (ie He doesn't really exist unless He's willing to prove it to me personally..dead relative, stop the earth rotating and so on). But you'll have to pardon me (or not, I s'pose) if they don't ring a little hollow. Kind of like saying you respect blank (women, blacks, anything really) but then talk trash about them right after uttering the first part of the statement. Still, having said that, you come across as more of a hardcore missouri style agnostic (ie show me or begone) than an athiest. In spite of your citing a thelogian to somehow validate your position on agnostic atheism, his quote doesn't change the meaning of the words and they do conflict. B/c what you're really saying isn't that you don't believe in God, just you don't believe YET. That's basically an agnostic.

[Ray Jones]

I do agree in part with some of your comments regarding the nature of threads like this one that if one is going to argue vs evolution, they shouldn't just resort to the knee jerk position that God created the universe and therefore evolution is merely bs.

I fail to see why there seems to be a lack of people supporting the idea that God created evolution.

 

I mean, they claim him to be potent enough to create the world and life and literally *everything*, including the possibiliy of building jet engines, spaceships, a-bombs, the act of murder and child molesting. These are all things which are all perfectly fine and considered as kind of "made by God", why the heck should it be impossible that he also created evolution to ensure that life exists in it's rich variety it does and he doesn't has to do a thing about it.

 

Maybe he created other worlds before, and got sick of having to do it all on it's own for every lifeform. With evolution he just needed to say "manky slime go here" and "teenie weenie poopy loopy smally pally cell pop up there" and ka-poof! -- fishes, bees, trees, eggs, beavers, humans and french canadians all over the place in no time at all. It's a huge difference if you write a program using assembler or a high level language, so to say, but in the end both codes end up as the same binary gibberish which appears to be the only thing average processors are willingly to work with. Hey, possible that the Bible is not up to date to the version of our universe, someone should go and download the actual one.

[Jae Onasi]

I fail to see why there seems to be a lack of people supporting the idea that God created evolution.

 

I don't object to this at all--I actually have some difficulty with the science of the very literal creationists.

 

I think it's entirely possible He guided it all along in a manner consistent with evolution. The only difference is that when you get down to the point of the creation of the very first life form, I can't believe that it happened by chance. It's so astronomically small that I find it takes more faith to believe in pure chance than God putting it together.

[Samuel Dravis]

I think it's entirely possible He guided it all along in a manner consistent with evolution.

With that sort of mindset, there is no material difference whether a god exists to drive evolution or not. I think quite a lot of people would find that acceptable.

 

The only difference is that when you get down to the point of the creation of the very first life form, I can't believe that it happened by chance. It's so astronomically small that I find it takes more faith to believe in pure chance than God putting it together.

Under such incredibly long, absolutely massive timescales it becomes a little more credible. Still, as you did with evolution, you can say that god started it (i.e., abiogenesis, which is not evolution per se). And what would be the difference? None, save the way you percieve it.

 

I'm curious, at what point would you say, "This IS what god did, it couldn't happen otherwise?" Is there such a point for you?

[Ray Jones]

The only difference is that when you get down to the point of the creation of the very first life form, I can't believe that it happened by chance. It's so astronomically small that I find it takes more faith to believe in pure chance than God putting it together.

Well, I cannot deny that possibility. But I think that, according to my understanding of things, the chances that a being put up life per fingersnap is 1 against uncountable "by chance events" in the chaotic system "planet Earth". So the chance is way more bigger for random creation of life. To me this is not faith, it's math. Again, who knows how God did it?

 

I really doubt life was simply put together. I don't think there was a single first "lifeform". I like the idea that the basics of life "died" a hundred billion deaths before there finally was anything looking real life-ish. And even then, it didn't survive, reproduce, whatever. Life started as what it still is, one big cluster of tons of chemical reactions (or in the case of cells, not that big).

 

Also, I found one question to be quite interesting: Is God a lifeform, too?

 

If so, how can God, as form of life, create life itself? Did he create his own existance as lifeform? I would find that hard to believe and logical quite impossible.

 

And if he's not a lifeform (this appears to me the only valid possbility in case he literally *created* life), then why impersonate him as "human" (or vice versa, humans after his image), because he is not even "life"? That seems somewhat contradicitve.

 

However, what I know is, that one lifeform can provide the environment for another to exist. One example for this is something humans call a zoo. A bigger and more complex, more random version of this would be a wildpark. (I do not deny non-lifeforms to be able to do so too )

 

So, regardless of God being a lifeform or not, he might just have created anything needed for life to occur; a huuuuuuuge universe (read: a very large, progressive and even more complex wildpark), large enough, to have a massive amount of random events, so that in the end life could (or even must) happen by chance.

 

In essence, God could have created nothing but the universe (or caused the universe to happen) and with that caused life to happen by chance. Even more, in this case, it'd be interpretable true to say, God is life, God is all around, God created whatever, .. you get the point.

[SkinWalker]

I can't believe that it happened by chance. It's so astronomically small that I find it takes more faith to believe in pure chance than God putting it together.

 

Not if you have an understanding of probability and apply this to some really big numbers. How many "chances" did the universe have? How many Little Fizzles were there before the Big Bang banged? How many stars orbiting how many galactic centers have how many planets with the right conditions.

 

We assume that because ours is the planet with life that we were meant to be alive. The failed attempts at life in the universe could be on the order of 10 to the 23 zeros. Or it could be 5. The situation is like the lotto winner: an "astronomically small" chance of winning, but for the winner it seems like "fate." Bollucks. Someone had to win. The same could be true with the universe and we should use n=1 when deciding the probability that life could emerge from a universe.